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I have read that the inner belt is located between 1,000 km and 12,000 km, followed by a slot region, and the second belt extends from 13,000 km to 60,000 km. Why are the particles trapped at these exact altitudes? From my understanding, the slot region or safe zone exists because some electromagnetic waves can interact with low energetic electrons, causing them to lose energy and decay from their orbits. Is that correct?

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  • $\begingroup$ It depends upon the energy of the particles, which in turn affects their gyroradius, drift period about Earth, etc. These are all controlled by what are called adiabatic invariants (e.g., see physics.stackexchange.com/a/670591/59023). $\endgroup$
    – honeste_vivere
    Commented Sep 20 at 18:52

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